A solid beginning to a trilogy that addresses all sorts of teenage alienation.
In Pattison’s (Pilgrims, 2017, etc.) YA novel, a half-alien boy finds love but also racial tension at a high school on Earth.
Fifteen-year-old Jake Rose is half Risonian. His mother is the Risonian ambassador, come to Earth to plead the case of her people, who will soon have no home. (Attempts to temper Rison’s volcanoes have backfired and brought the planet to the brink of destruction.) The Risonians—an amphibious race—seek leave to take refuge in the cold depths of Earth’s oceans. As an allegory for immigration and refugees in general, they find themselves distrusted. Their detractors refer to them as sharks and fear they will turn aggressive if allowed to settle. Jake is in hiding, sent to his (human) father’s old high school but forced to conceal his identity: in particular his legs, which “Velcro” together in water to form a tail. Whatever happens, he must keep a low profile. But how can he when anti-Risonian activists are planning an ecological attack that will destroy diplomatic relations between the two species? How can he when Em—the girl in his biology class—might just be his first love? Pattison writes Jake as a teenager first and an alien second. This is an astute piece of characterization: His cultural disorientation mirrors the uncertainties of adolescence, his confusion about Em (and Earth customs) making him easy to relate to. Jake makes questionable decisions. He is both a young adult and an outsider. By conflating these two perspectives, Pattison humanizes the alien experience and—without pushing the point—paints xenophobia itself as faintly ridiculous. Grounded in the real-life locale of Puget Sound, Washington, Jake’s story bounces haphazardly (though not unpleasingly) between Risonian and romantic plotlines, one usually derailing the other. Ultimately, it’s his relationship with Em that emerges more clearly. Compared to the burgeoning romance, the anti-Risonian plan is lightly sketched. This, however, is not inconsistent with a teenager’s muddled priorities. Junior high readers should approve.
A solid beginning to a trilogy that addresses all sorts of teenage alienation.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62944-071-2
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Mims House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
Hillenbrand takes license with the familiar song (the traditional words and music are reproduced at the end) to tell an enchanting story about baby animals picked up by the train and delivered to the children’s zoo. The full-color drawings are transportingly jolly, while the catchy refrain—“See the engine driver pull his little lever”—is certain to delight readers. Once the baby elephant, flamingo, panda, tiger, seal, and kangaroo are taken to the zoo by the train, the children—representing various ethnic backgrounds, and showing one small girl in a wheelchair—arrive. This is a happy book, filled with childhood exuberance. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201804-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
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